Taj Mahal

Interesting facts

Its four minarets, each over 40 metres tall, lean slightly outward so that if one ever collapsed it would fall away from the tomb.

The cenotaphs in the main hall are empty; the actual graves of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan lie in a plainer chamber below.

Shah Jahan's cenotaph sits on a larger base on the western side of his wife's, breaking the otherwise strict symmetry of the tomb chamber.

Calligraphy on the high gateway panels is written in slightly larger letters, so the script appears uniform in size when read from the ground.

Craftsmen inlaid 28 kinds of precious and semi-precious stone into the white marble using the pietra dura technique.

More than 20,000 artisans and labourers worked on the complex, and materials were hauled up a 15 km earthen ramp by oxen and elephants.

The white marble came from Makrana in Rajasthan, while inlay stones were brought from as far as China, Tibet, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Arabia.

According to legend, Shah Jahan planned a black twin across the river, but 1990s excavations showed the dark stones there were discoloured white marble.

In 1942 the government hid the dome under scaffolding as camouflage against possible Japanese air raids.

To shield the marble from pollution, India created the Taj Trapezium Zone, a protected area of about 10,400 square kilometres with strict emission rules.

Why it is worth it

Shah Jahan began building this in 1631 as a tomb for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who had died giving birth to their fourteenth child. Its chief architect, Ustad Ahmad Lahauri, coordinated craftsmen — masons, calligraphers, inlay specialists — drawn from across the Mughal empire and beyond, housed in a purpose-built settlement called Taj Ganj that still exists today; some residents there are descendants of the original workforce, and a few still practice the same inlay and stonework trades their ancestors were brought in for.

One story that does not hold up: the popular claim that Shah Jahan had the masons' hands cut off, or the architect blinded, afterward so the design could never be copied. Historians of Mughal architecture, including Ebba Koch, have found no contemporary record supporting it — it appears to be a much later "guide's tale," and it echoes a folklore pattern that turns up around monuments in many countries whenever a building seems almost too perfect for its makers to have simply gone on to other work.

More than 6.5 million people now visit each year, drawn partly by an effect that needs no debunking: the white marble genuinely does shift colour through the day, pale pink at dawn, blinding white by noon, gold-tinted under moonlight — an effect of the marble's translucency and the changing angle of light rather than any trick.

Good to know

The Taj is normally closed after dark, but the Archaeological Survey of India opens it for night viewing on a handful of nights around each full moon — the full moon night plus two nights either side, excluding Fridays — with strictly limited numbers and advance booking required.

Best time to visit

Early morning at sunrise, for the softest light and the thinnest crowds.

Getting there

Located in Agra. Agra Airport / Agra Air Force Station (AGR) is about 8 km away.

From the encyclopaedia

The Taj Mahal is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, to house the tomb of his late wife, Mumtaz Mahal; it also houses the tomb of Shah Jahan himself. The tomb is the centrepiece of a 17-hectare (42-acre) complex, which includes a mosque and a guest house, and is set in formal gardens bounded on three sides by a crenellated wall.

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